Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

It's seems this is the likely conclusion! I can't imagine the complexity of what they are trying to do and not have them at least say "hey, we need more time to get this going..." Instead, they acting as if everything was perfectly on track...how many times does that happen in the real world.... about 0% of the time.

"Insurers say the federal health-care marketplace is generating flawed data that is straining their ability to handle even the trickle of enrollees who have gotten through so far, in a sign that technological problems extend further than the website traffic and software issues already identified.

Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions. Medical Mutual of Ohio said one customer had successfully signed up for three of its plans."

Share on other sites

"Consumer Reports, which publishes reviews of consumer products and services, advised its readers to avoid the federal health-care exchange “for at least another month if you can.” “Hopefully that will be long enough for its software vendors to clean up the mess they’ve made,” the magazine said, having tested the site themselves over the course of the past three weeks.

Noting that only 271,000 of the 9.47 million people who tried signing up in the first week managed to create an account, Consumer Reports then provided a few tips to those attempting to slog through the application process. From attempting successive logins because “error messages . . . may not always match reality” to checking one’s inbox frequently because missing an e-mail a user will be timed out of the site and forced to start from square one, none of the suggestions guaranteed success.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I think 10 years from now the words "clusterfuck" and "obamacare" will mean substantially the same thing. You know the people who are going to get reamed by this? It's not the unemployed, they don't file tax returns. It's not the uber rich, they can afford whatever. It's the working class, the people who pour your drinks, the guy who checks your groceries, those people are going to get absolutely reamed in the ass sideways over this. Triply so, if you have kids, if you have a family.

Because they'll never be able to sign up for anything, it's going to be too complicated, the websites will never work right, even if they do, the initial reports are that the premiums are going to be way more expensive than the tax-per-head will be. Basically it's a regressive tax. I think at this point, if you had told those people who are going to be hurt by this whether they'd take a 5% increase in income tax or face this, they'd probably take the straight tax increase.

I dunno. I've pretty much given up on Murica. I go to practice my German now. I hope to become fluent.

Small-business plaintiffs say the government is treating all 50 states the same even though Congress allowed them to opt out – and 36 did

The IRS is granting insurance subsidies to taxpayers in the 'refusenik' states, even though the text of the Obamacare law doesn't allow it

A federal judge denied the government's motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday

He also refused, however, to issue an injunction barring the Obama administration from implementing the law while the case moves forward

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a case that could fatally cripple the Obamacare health insurance law.

The Affordable Care Act forbids the federal government from enforcing the law in any state that opted out of setting up its own health care exchange, according to a group of small businesses whose lawsuit got a key hearing Monday in federal court.

The Obama administration, according to their lawsuit, has ignored that language in the law, enforcing all of its provisions even in states where the federal government is operating the insurance marketplaces on the error-plagued Healthcare.gov website.

Thirty-six states chose not to set up their exchanges, a move that effectively froze Washington, D.C. out of the authority to pay subsidies and other pot-sweeteners to convince citizens in those states to buy medical insurance.

But the IRS overstepped its authority by paying subsidies in those states anyway, say the businesses and their lawyers.

Florida Blue, the state’s largest health insurer, says the move is to offset the new health care law’s requirement that things like maternity and newborn care, mental health, substance abuse services, and emergency services be covered by individual and small market plans.

Kaiser Health News reported that many canceled plans from Florida Blue, and other insurers across the country, fall short of the requirements laid out in the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. The organization says many were purchased after the law was passed in 2010, so insurance companies knew they would be temporary policies.

Impacted Florida Blue customers will be notified by mail.

“We will provide our members recommendations for new plan options, and encourage them to contact us so we could help determine their best course of action,” Mark Wright, a Florida Blue Spokesman, said in a statement.

U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders are demanding information from Obamacare's top technology officials regarding the creation federal insurance exchange web site, HealthCare.gov, according to a letter sent to White House officials on Tuesday. The letter alleges that the Obama administration ordered the web site designers and creators to hide price comparisons from Americans until after they registered and provided all personal information.

from the article: “We believe that the political decision to mask the ‘sticker shock’ of Obamacare to the American people prevented contractors from using universally accepted and OMB-advocated IT ‘best practices’ in the development and roll out of this massive federal government IT project. When prudent design and programming decisions are subordinated to politics, the result is the chaotic mess we have today.”

Share on other sites

FARGO – The Obama administration asked North Dakota’s largest health insurer not to publicize how many people have signed up for health insurance through a new online exchange, a company official says.

FARGO – The Obama administration asked North Dakota’s largest health insurer not to publicize how many people have signed up for health insurance through a new online exchange, a company official says.

During a Monday forum in Fargo for people interested in signing up for coverage via the exchange, James Nichol of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota told the crowd his company received the request from the federal government earlier Monday. Nichol is a consumer sales manager for the company.

Still, a spokeswoman from Blue Cross Blue Shield says about 14 North Dakotans have signed up for coverage since the federal exchange went live Oct. 1. That brings total statewide enrollment to 20 – less than one a day.

"Brian Williams opened NBC Nightly News Wednesday evening with the breaking news that the Obama Administration is planning to move the deadline for individuals to sign up for health care as part of the Affordable Care Act up to six weeks due to ongoing problems with the HealthCare.gov website."

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

This is one all Americans especially should read, it makes the most sense of anything I've read yet.

Why ObamaCare is a fantastic success

Wayne Allen Root

October 21, 2013

"There are two major political parties in America. I’m a member of the naïve, stupid, and cowardly one. I’m a Republican.

How stupid is the GOP? They still don’t get it.

I told them 5 years ago, 2 books ago, a national bestseller ago ("The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide"), and in hundreds of articles and commentaries, that ObamaCare was never meant to help America, or heal the sick, or lower healthcare costs, or lower the debt, or expand the economy.

The GOP needs to stop calling ObamaCare a “trainwreck.” That means it’s a mistake, or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop, or failure. It’s NOT.

This is a brilliant, cynical, and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism.

It’s not a failure, it’s Obama’s grand success.

It’s not a “trainwreck,” ObamaCare is a suicide attack. He wants to hurt us, to bring us to our knees, to capitulate- so we agree under duress to accept big government.

Obama’s hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky -- a radical Marxist intent on destroying capitalism. Alinksky’s stated advice was to call the other guy “a terrorist” to hide your own intentions.

To scream that the other guy is “ruining America,” while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of America. To claim again and again…in every sentence of every speech…that you are “saving the middle class,” while you are busy wiping out the middle class.

The GOP is so stupid they can’t see it. There are no mistakes here. This is a planned purposeful attack.

Link to post

Share on other sites

Critics of Obama's healthcare plan are suing over a part of the law that offers tax credits through state exchanges. If they win, the program falls apart in 36 states.

"WASHINGTON— If computer glitches are not enough of a problem, President Obama's healthcare law also has a legal glitch that critics say could cause it to unravel in more than half the nation.

The Affordable Care Act proposes to make health insurance affordable to millions of low-income Americans by offering them tax credits to help cover the cost. To receive the credit, the law twice says they must buy insurance "through an exchange established by the state."

But 36 states have decided against opening exchanges for now. Although the law permits the federal government to open exchanges instead, it does not say tax credits may be given to those who buy insurance through a federally run exchange.

Apparently no one noticed this when the long and complicated bill worked its way through the House and Senate. Last year, however, the Internal Revenue Service tried to remedy it by putting out a regulation that redefined "exchange" to include a "federally facilitated exchange." This is "consistent with the language, purpose and structure … of the act as a whole," the Treasury Department said."

snip

The states have now split evenly, as 25 of them have opted to take the extra money from Washington and expand their Medicaid coverage, and 25 have refused. As a result, the law's aim to provide free healthcare for those who are poor will go forward in only half of the nation.

The new suits take aim at the parts of the law that offer subsidies to those who are above the poverty level but still may struggle to pay for insurance. A single person with an income up to $45,960 can qualify for subsidies now, as can a family of four with an income up to $94,200. If the federal government cannot offer these subsidies in the 36 states without exchanges, it cannot enforce the mandate to have insurance, lawyers say.

"My jaw dropped when I first saw this," said Michael F. Cannon, a health policy expert at the Cato Institute and a fierce critic of the law. He and others credit former Justice Department attorney Tom Christina and Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, with first highlighting the glitch.

"This has the potential to sink Obamacare. It could make the current website problems seem minor by comparison," Cannon said.

Half a milllion Californians could lose their health care under Obamacare next year

October 25, 2013

Debra Saunders

This Kaiser Health News story has been reverberating across the Internet because it starts to put together the numbers of private health-plan insureds who are receiving cancellations. (This is a small group of Californians; a majority get their health care through employer plans, Medicare or MediCal.) I’ve written about the issue here and here. From the story:

Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

On Forbes’ Avik Roy’s blog, Josh Archambault crunched the numbers and concluded, “More Americans in 3 States Have Had Their Insurance Canceled Under Obamacare than have filed an exchange account in all 50.”

"The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here....There is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place."

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Gee, a politician that's bought and paid for? I'm shocked, shocked by this. What I'd like at this point, is if the people who pull Obama's strings - if they would come out of the shadows and start talking to the public, that's what I would like to see.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Many middle-class Californians with individual health plans are surprised they need policies that cover more — and cost more.

October 26, 2013

Chad Terhune

"Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them — and many don't like what they see.

These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years.

Although recent criticism of the healthcare law has focused on website glitches and early enrollment snags, experts say sharp price increases for individual policies have the greatest potential to erode public support for President Obama's signature legislation.

"This is when the actual sticker shock comes into play for people," said Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. "There are winners and losers under the Affordable Care Act."

Fullerton resident Jennifer Harris thought she had a great deal, paying $98 a month for an individual plan through Health Net Inc. She got a rude surprise this month when the company said it would cancel her policy at the end of this year. Her current plan does not conform with the new federal rules, which require more generous levels of coverage.

Now Harris, a self-employed lawyer, must shop for replacement insurance. The cheapest plan she has found will cost her $238 a month. She and her husband don't qualify for federal premium subsidies because they earn too much money, about $80,000 a year combined.

snip

Nearly 2 million Californians have individual insurance, and several hundred thousand of them are losing their health plans in a matter of weeks.

Blue Shield of California sent termination letters to 119,000 customers last month whose plans don't meet the new federal requirements. About two-thirds of those people will experience a rate increase from switching to a new health plan, according to the company.

HMO giant Kaiser Permanente is canceling coverage for about half of its individual customers, or 160,000 people, and offering to automatically enroll them in the most comparable health plan available.

The 16 million Californians who get health insurance through their employers aren't affected. Neither are individuals who have "grandfathered" policies bought before March 2010, when the healthcare law was enacted. It's estimated that about half of policyholders in the individual market have those older plans.

"President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered."

"WASHINGTON, D.C. - In the ongoing disaster that has been called the rollout of Obamacare, it now appears that the critical data center tied to Healthcare.gov has crashed. All enrollments have been halted to the 50 statessnip

The outage started early on Sunday and caused the data center to lose connectivity with the federal government’s data services hub which links all the healthcare data together. Without it, consumers are unable to determine if they are eligible, or apply for health care programs. Just one day before, Sebelius was praising the hub’s ability to perform complex calculations quickly. She touted it as a success.snip

"President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered."

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

W2K did you read this article I posted on page 2 of this thread? Makes the most sense of anything I've read so far. You know, I wondered the same thing, because the entity said we would no longer like Obama after this secret became known. It seems though, that some just aren't, aren't.....missing a word here. Awake yet?

"New York doctors are treating ObamaCare like the plague, a new survey reveals.

A poll conducted by the New York State Medical Society finds that 44 percent of MDs said they are not participating in the nation’s new health-care plan.

Another 33 percent say they’re still not sure whether to become ObamaCare providers.

snip

“This is so poorly designed that a lot of doctors are afraid to participate,” said Dr. Sam Unterricht, president of the 29,000-member organization. “There’s a lot of resistance. Doctors don’t know what they’re going to get paid.”<<not to feel bad, we don't know what we are being charged either, so join the crowd Doc!!

snip

“I am seriously considering opting out of all insurance plans including Medicare because of [ObamaCare].”

Some physicians said the pressure on insurance carriers to control costs is leading to rationed care.

“OBAMACARE is a disaster. I have already seen denial of medication, denial of referrals,” one doc said.

snip

“I get screwed from insurance companies already. I refuse to get screwed any longer,” one doctor said.

Others said they don’t have enough information to make an informed choice.

“This is a joke. We are flying blind,” said one doctor.<<<< so are we Doc, so are we!!

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I did Breezy....and that's when the bell went off. This whole Obamascare is ridiculous....I mean, how can ANYONE agreed to have passed this - Democrat, Republican, Liberal - whatever! This whole scheme just reeks of stupidness, which I suppose is a reflection of those who put it through.

I really do wonder if this is the secret...and if so - how much longer do we have to endure this schlep?

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Americans who sign up for insurance on the state exchanges may not have access to the nation's top hospitals, Watchdog.org reports.

October 30, 2013

"The Obama Administration has been claiming that insurance companies will be competing for your dollars under the Affordable Care Act, but apparently they haven't surveyed the nation's top hospitals.

Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.

"This doesn't surprise me," said Gail Wilensky, Medicare advisor for the second Bush Administration and senior fellow for Project HOPE. "There has been an incredible amount of focus on the premium cost and subsidy, and precious little focus on what you get for your money."

Regulations driven by the Obama White House have indeed made insurance more affordable – if, like Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, you're looking only at price. But responding to Obamacare caps on premiums, many insurers will, in turn, simply offer top-tier doctors and hospitals far less cash for services rendered.

Google Inc. (GOOG:US), Red Hat Inc. (RHT:US), Oracle Corp. (ORCL:US) and other technology companies are contributing dozens of computer engineers and programmers to help the Obama administration fix the U.S. health-insurance exchange website.

The help is arriving as the government’s main site for medical coverage remains plagued by repeated outages a month after its Oct. 1 debut. Michael Dickerson, a site reliability engineer on leave from Google, and Greg Gershman, innovation director for smartphone application maker Mobomo, are among those helping, the Obama administration said today.

“They are working through the analytics of what happens on the site to prioritize what needs to be fixed,” Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters on a conference call. Dickerson is working to improve the stability of the website, while Gershman is “helping the development process be more agile.”

In West Virginia and New Hampshire, for example, residents shopping on the exchanges can only purchase plans from a single company. Contrast that with the state-operated exchange in New York which has 16 participating companies, an average of five per county. Wisconsin, which is on the federal exchange, has 13 participating insurers, although some counties in the state have only one.